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Music Mandy’s Music Mail 1/7/11

January 7, 2011 - 9:21 am

I’m a week into my three-week holiday in lovely London Town, and though I didn’t think it possible, I’ve fallen even more in love with this city (which is quite something considering it was rather stressful to begin with: first and second flights canceled due to the epic blizzard in New York; third flight massively delayed; didn’t get my luggage until this past Monday; phone completely broke – yay for my friend having a spare Blackberry). However, overall it’s been wonderful and me and London seem to get on pretty damn well. But more on my adventures later, let’s get to this week’s music news, shall we?

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Music Kanye West’s Top 10 Producing Credits

by Shop Keeper

January 4, 2011 - 11:36 am

Before he was throwing temper tantrums at the MTV VMAs and being labeled the biggest jerk in the history of hip hop, and before he released his critically acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West was producing some of the dopest beats the game has ever heard.

Kanye’s career as a rap artist didn’t exactly take off like a Gulfstream en route to the south of France. Prior to reaching superstar status as a rap artist, many labels were reluctant to sign Kanye West “the producer” to a record deal.

It took a 2003 car accident to inspire Kanye to write and produce “Through the Wire”, a track he recorded with his jaw wired shut. With critical acclaim, his career as a respected rap artist and eventual superstar was launched. For Mr. West, there was no looking back.

Luckily for you, we enjoyed history class in high school. So much so that we decided to take a look back and list our favorite pre-superstar Kanye-produced tracks:

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Music Prepare to be Amazed: The 2010 Grammy Nominations

by Rich Thomas

December 6, 2010 - 1:01 pm

After having the weekend to marinate on both this year’s Grammy nominations and the college football bowl selections, I’m having a hard time figuring out which entity frustrates me more, the BCS or the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. For both, a lot of money is riding on who gets anointed with top honors, but every year both groups seem to get more wrong than they do right. (Except for the year NARAS picked 60% right on the Album of the Year nomination with Radiohead’s OK Computer, Paul McCartney’s Flaming Pie and Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind.) But the sad fact is, both entities aren’t going away anytime soon, so we must make due with what we’ve got. I’ve highlighted a few categories below and picked some crowd favorites and dark horses. (You can see the entire list of nominations here.) Sit back, crack open a juice box, and prepare to shake your fist at the screen. And don’t forget to check out some of our very own nominations at the end. We think they deserve a little shine, too!

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Music Music Magic 11/26/10

by Amanda Boyd

November 26, 2010 - 12:36 pm

Hello! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was wonderful and I’m actually writing to you today from good old London. Woke up this morning to an email from my (awesome) eldest brother with the subject: “I Made You a Mixtape – RUN IN FRONT OF TRAFFIC MUSIC” (an on-going joke with us about music that gets you amped up). If that, Ribena, a Bacon Butty and kickin’ it with one of my favorite people in the world doesn’t make for an excellent start to the weekend, well, I just don’t know what does.

Marina & The Diamonds’ “Obsessions,” “I’m Not a Robot” and “Mowgli’s Road” (all off The Family Jewels, officially released February 22, 2010) got a lot of play Summer 2009, but to be quite frank, I honestly haven’t given her much thought since then. So I was a bit surprised to find Christopher Dexter Greenspan (aka OOOoOOO… which reminds me of the (awesome) song by Oberhofer “oOOOoOOOo” recently remixed “Obsessions.” That being said, I’m really effing glad he did because he reminded me how much I love Marina & The Diamonds. His take is decidedly more synth heavy and has a gorgeous operatic feel; totally loving it.

Marina and the Diamonds – Obsessions (oOoOO Remix)

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Music Music Magic 11/19/10

by Amanda Boyd

November 19, 2010 - 11:33 am

Hi! The wonderful day of the week that is Friday is upon us once again and I’m back with my utterly magical music update to make it that much better!

The other day I was perusing through my iTunes and came across The White Lies; I’d forgotten how much I absolutely love them. Their first album “To Lose My Life” is ludicrously good and it’s been a minute since I’ve heard anything new from them and was I wondering when they were going to release some new material. The greatness that is 2010 strikes yet again and what do I come across this week? The video for their new single, “Bigger Than Us”. Check it out Here, it’s an absolute banger of a track.

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Music Music Magic 11/5/10

by Amanda Boyd

November 5, 2010 - 11:01 am

This week has been ridiculously busy but seriously awesome: Halloween weekend plus kicking it at the famed MSR Studios every night this week with The Roots, Miniature Tigers and Shiny Toy Guns as they rehearse for Red Bull’s Soundclashes taking place later this month in Atlanta and Phoenix. Hard to believe sometimes that this is my job. Pretty incredible. That being said, I’m most happy it’s the weekend and am looking forward to cheering my friend Tess on as she runs the New York City Marathon on Sunday!!

So speaking of The Roots (all of whom are amongst the nicest guys I’ve ever met, such wonderful and immensely talented men), check out their performance of “Maniac” (which I wrote about the other week) with St. Vincent, Kid Cudi and Cage on Jimmy Fallon.

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Music Friday’s Fantastic Music Magic!

by Amanda Boyd

October 15, 2010 - 11:43 am

What’s a perfect remedy to a less than stellar start to a morning when one is woken up at 5am to a ludicrously loud garbage truck that beeps incessantly for (no joke) 30 minutes? Discovering the full album stream for Kings of Leon’s Come Around Sundown a full week before it’s release! I have been looking forward to this for months and totes did a little (okay major) happy dance upon said discovery.

As a whole, the album doesn’t sound all that different from Only By The Night, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest as I loved OBTN. It really frustrates me when people complain how their new stuff sounds so different from albums past and they refuse to like it purely on that basis alone. It’s a good thing that it sounds different. Their first EP, Holly Roller Novocaine came out in 2003, and frankly, if their sound hadn’t grown and changed, they wouldn’t be as successful and people would be complaining that every song sounded the same, and to be honest, their music hasn’t changed that dramatically – which is one of the great things about KoL, in my opinion – they continue to grow and try new things, yet are still able to maintain a distinctive sound.

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Music DJ Muggs Vs. Ill bill – “Kill Devil Hills” Listening Session (07/15/2010)

by Geo Hagan

July 21, 2010 - 10:16 am

The rotten apple has been in the firm grip of a sizzling heat wave for the last two weeks – and as any New Yorker will tell you, when it starts to really bake in Gotham, it’s something serious. It probably has something to do with all the skyscrapers holding in the heat and the concrete pavements emitting it so offensively to the city’s denizens. So anyways, it was a welcome pleasure to walk into DJ Premier’s “Headqcourterz” studios on the west of Manhattan for the Ill Bill/DJ Muggs listening session and see a nice spread of very-chilled Heinekens, Coronas and bottled waters set out for the invited guests. After cooling down with a few long sips of cold beer and ingesting a quick pizza slice, reality set in that I was actually lounging in the confines of hallowed rap history. “Headqcourterz” studios was formerly known as D&D, and this is the same location where rap gods like Jay-Z , Nas and Biggie recorded key cuts with DJ Premier for their classic debut albums: Reasonable Doubt, Illmatic and Ready to Die respectively. It’s also where Primo’s own group, Gangstarr (R.I.P. Guru) recorded classic albums in their extensive collection – epic albums like Hard to Earn, Moment of Truth and Daily Operation. No one has to tell you how special this place is – the gold and platinum plaques on the wall tell the story all too clearly.

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Music Marco Polo: Boom Bap from the T. Dot

by Geo Hagan

May 26, 2010 - 10:21 am

Toronto beat maker Marco Polo likes his hip-hop beats to sound a certain kind of way, and that’s exactly how he makes them; raw, dusty, sample-heavy and with hardboiled drums that could bust the inner sanctums of even the most sturdy, fortified speakers. So when he tells you that his inspiration comes from that Golden era of rap that produced classic rappers like Q-Tip, Kool G. Rap and KRS-One, it really comes as no surprise.

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Fashion Anna Wintour’s Party Mixtape

by Gala Darling

May 13, 2010 - 10:04 am

Anna Wintour’s reputation as the feared editrix of Vogue is not undeserved. She was, after all, the inspiration for Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada. Her nickname is the charming epithet ‘Nuclear Wintour’. Her haircut has been exactly the same since she was in her early twenties.

But here are some things you may not known about The Bobbed One.

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